"...My son, that subtle essence which you do not perceive there, of that very essence this great Nyagrodha tree exists.... That which is the subtile essence, in it all that exists has its self. It is the True. It is the Self, and thou, O Svetaketu, art it." Substance, the Thing-in-itself--You were It. Dan was It. You could think away your body, Dan's body. One eternal thinker, thinking non-eternal thoughts. Dreaming horrible dreams. Dan's drunkenness. Why? Eleven. A soft scuffle. The scurry of sheep's feet on the Green. A dog barking. The shepherds were back from Reyburn. Feet shuffled on the flagstone. She went to the door. Dan leaned against the doorpost, bent forward heavily; his chin dropped to his chest. Something slimy gleamed on his shoulder and hip. Wet mud of the ditch he had fallen in. She stiffened her muscles to his weight, to the pull and push of his reeling body. Roddy's room. With one lurch he reached Roddy's white bed in the corner. She looked at the dressing-table. A strip of steel flashed under the candlestick. The blue end of a matchbox stuck up out of the saucer. There would be more matches in Dan's coat pocket. She took away the matches and the razor. Her mother stood waiting in the doorway of her room, small and piteous in her nightgown. Her eyes glanced off the razor, and blinked. "Is Dan all right?" "Yes. He came back with the sheep." V. The Hegels had come: The _Logik_. Three volumes. The bristling Gothic text an ambush of secret, exciting, formidable things. The titles flamed; flags of strange battles; signals of strange ships; challenging, enticing to the dangerous adventure. After the first enchantment, the Buddhist Suttas and the Upanishads were no good. Nor yet the Vedânta. You couldn't keep on saying, "This is That," and "Thou art It," or that the Self is the dark blue bee and the green parrot with red eyes and the thunder-cloud, the seasons and the seas. It was too easy, too sleepy, like lying on a sofa and dropping laudanum, slowly, into a rotten, aching tooth. Your teeth were sound and strong, they had to have something hard to bite on. You wanted to think, to keep on thinking. Your mind wasn't really like a tooth; it was like a robust, energetic body, happy when it was doing difficult and dangerous things, balancing itself on heights, lifting great weights of thought, following the long march into thick, smoky battles. "Being and Not-Being are the same": ironic and superb defiance. And then commotion; as if the infinite stillness, the immovable Substance, had got up and begun moving--Rhythm of eternity: the same for ever: for ever different: for ever the same. Thought _was_ the Thing-in-itself. This man was saying, over and over and all the time what you had wanted Kant to say, what he wouldn't say, what you couldn't squeeze out of him, however you turned and twisted him. You jumped to where the name "Spinoza" glittered like a jewel on the large grey page.